


A Novel Idea

by always_a_queen



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, The Author Regrets Nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 14:32:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15820833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/always_a_queen/pseuds/always_a_queen
Summary: These are not the words of Jane Austen or Emily Bronte, or even Madeline L’Engle. There’s a shocking level of depth to it, so much carefully planned foreshadowing. Sure there’s some passionate love declarations, and passionate kissing, and passionate love making, but in the end it’s a solid story.Jane flips it over and for the first time, glances at the Author’s name: Thor Odinson.--We're gonna blame this post.relevanttosomeone: "Alternative universe where Thor is a writer.An AU Thor, as it were."And then NOBODY STOPPED ME.





	A Novel Idea

**Author's Note:**

> Unbetaed. Any mistakes are mine. Written in like an hour because the idea just wouldn't leave after THAT GREAT A PUN. I regret nothing.

Jane Foster tucks her treasured copy of  _From Earth To Asgard_  beneath her arm as she steps out of her apartment. After a quick twist of a key in a lock and an adjustment of her purse strap against her shoulder, she starts off down the street in the direction of Selvig’s Books. A strong gust of wind pushes against her, kicking brown and orange shaded leaves across the sidewalk.

Selvig’s started out as a quaint little antique bookstore, one Jane has visited many times as a little girl, and many more times during her time as a student and now as a literature professor. She even chose her apartment for its proximity to the store. Turn left from her apartment and she would have a quick two-block walk to Selvig’s. Turn right and she would have a quick three-block walk to the bus stop for a ten minute ride to the school.

But Selvig’s has grown since Jane was a little. Sure, there’s still her favorite section of the store, filled with wonderful first editions and antique chairs squished between mis-matched bookshelves as the speakers play soft classical music or Jane’s favorite: a selection of smooth jazz melodies.

The other, newer side of Selvig’s is completely different. New sofas, matching bookshelves, not a first edition book in sight. Everything is bright and smooth, with the newest releases staked in pyramids on the three huge tables at the front of the store. Jane usually bypasses those tables immediately and heads back to the literary fiction section.

And it is there that Jane’s obsession has formed. One awful day in December, close to Christmas but not quite, feeling a little lonely and a lot of sadness, Jane picked up a book from the popular section. For once, she doesn’t want something weighty to sink her teeth into. She just wants light, happy, predictable.

The cover of the book on the right table looks to be just that. A man and a woman stare at each other underneath a starlit sky. There’s the silhouette of a tree beside them, and in the sky, a spaceship hovers against the light and stars. So Jane picks it up. She sets in in her basket. Erik Selvig smiles kindly at her as he rings it up, and even gives her a discount.

So she reads it on Christmas Eve, with a cup of hot cocoa on the end table and an open package of Oreos on the bedcover beside her.

And she falls in  _love_. These are not the words of Jane Austen or Emily Bronte, or even Madeline L’Engle. There’s a shocking level of depth to it, so much carefully planned foreshadowing. Sure there’s some passionate love declarations, and passionate kissing, and passionate love  _making_ , but in the end it’s a solid story.

Jane flips it over and for the first time, glances at the Author’s name: Thor Odinson.

Thus begins her love affair with all of Odinson’s work. She pours over all  _six_  of his previous works, becoming more and more interested in his writing style, in the way he twists his work so the reader is actually surprised by much of how his plot develops.

And now, here she is, walking to Selvig’s. Because of all things, there’s a book reading and signing today. Erik has had a few, naturally, but never before anyone that Jane was super interested in.

Except today it’s for Thor Odinson. Jane’s heart has been jumping out of her chest ever since Erik casually mentioned the event a few weeks ago.

She’d tossed out the idea immediately. She surely would be busy that day. She certainly did not need to go meet a popular romance author and hear him read a chapter of his new book, which she has had preordered for the past  _six months_.

No. No she does not.

And yet, here she is, sliding into a folding chair at Selvig’s and listening as her favorite author clears his throat and takes a sip of his water.

Thor Odinson is not what she is expecting. She hasn’t seen many pictures of the man, the ones on his dust jackets are black and white and not as huge as others. Besides, he’s changed a bit since the professional photos. There, his hair is short and neat, he has a nice, even smile. He’s dressed in a suit and tie. Here, ten feet away from her, dressed in dark jeans and a blue tee shirt covered by plaid flannel. His blond hair is long, nearly shoulder length.

But his  _voice_. Jane runs out of a few adjectives after he’s only spoken a few sentences. It’s soft, even, rough, gentle, evocative.

He brings more to the words on the pages by reading them, and Jane almost can’t believe how entranced she is.

It seems like he’s barely begun when he reaches the last sentence of the chapter, saying the words with a slow finality. She’s so startled by the rest of the women in the room clapping that she almost jumps.

Standing in line, waiting for him to sign her copy of  _From Earth To Asgard_  is it’s own special brand of torture.

Too soon, the moment is there. He meets her eyes, and her heart flips. He  _smiles_  at here, and she’s  _sure_  she’d dead.

“Ah,” he says, taking the book from her hands. “One of the first.”

“Your best,” Jane hears herself say. She freezes instantly. She didn’t mean to say that. He’s just published a totally new book. She probably shouldn’t just be making statements like that especially since she really thinks  _Chasing The Storm_  or  _Science and Magic_ might be his best.  _From Earth To Asgard_  is just her favorite.

“My favorite,” Thor Odinson says, flipping open the cover and reaching for a sharpie. “Who should I make it out to?”

“Why do they have to be separated at the end?” Jane asks. “Why did you end it like that?” 

He looks up, one eyebrow raised.

“She’s just standing there in the desert, looking up at the sky, but he’s  _gone_. And we know from the epilogue that the bridge is broken, it probably won’t regrow for another thousand years and by then she’ll be dead and…” She takes a long breath. “You broke a genre convention. You didn’t have a sequel planned; you didn’t imply that they would get back together, you wrote a romance novel without a happy ending and I just…”

She shrugs her shoulder. “Look, I read this book all alone on Christmas Eve. I love what you did with the characterization; your foreshadowing was on point, but I was promised, but the conventions of your genre, a happy ending. And I didn’t get one.”

He opens his mouth, but Jane, suddenly aghast at what she’s just said to her all-time favorite writer, cuts him off, “Uhm, if you could make it out to Jane, Jane Foster, that would be great.”

He scribbles something down, then passes the book back to her. As she reaches to take it, he puts his hand on hers. “Page 309, remember?”

She shakes her head. She does not.

“It is better,” Thor says, “To live here among the Stars than to fall to the land of earth, where time is cruel and love is wicked. Better to live and forget her than to leave this place and die with her.”

“But he  _was_  going to leave,” Jane protests, “Before Idraire sets the bridge aflame and his only way of getting back to Elizabeth is lost.”

“And the last line?” Thor still has not let go of her hand. “Between the siren song of love and the stars, the best decision is always to fall.”

Jane stops. “To fall in love,” she says.

Thor’s smile grows. “Is that it?”

She needs to read the book again. She needs to read it right now, because she thinks she remembers, in one of the earliest chapters, a character telling another that a falling star was an Asgardian leaping from the edge of the bridge in the hopes of making it to earth to be with the one he loved. And there were certainly all kinds of hints that George, one of side characters, was an immortal Asgardian trapped on earth…

“Woah,” she says, her eyes lighting up. 

“Pleasure to meet you, Jane Foster,” Thor Odinson says.

And he lifts her hand to his lips and kisses her knuckles.

Jane can hardly breath.

Later, Jane has a small stack of light reading tucked away in a brown bag as is just starting her quick treck home when she hears the unmistakable bell above Selvig’s front door and a man’s voice call, “Jane!”

She turns, and there he is. The wind is whipping about his hair as he runs towards her. “I’m just about finished up in there… would you like to get some coffee with me?”

And Jane might still be completely out of her mind, still be completely obsessed with this man whose words turned her heart and life upside-down. How crazy, how absolutely utterly insane to even be considering this.

But she thinks of the last line in a book she loves, and she decides that maybe the best decision really is always to fall.

So fall she does.


End file.
